"Dulcimer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... public notice by exhibiting the 'Enchanted Lyre,' or 'Aconcryptophone,' at a music-shop at Pall Mall and in the Adelaide Gallery. It consisted of a mimic lyre hung from the ceiling by a cord, and emitting the strains of several instruments—the piano, harp, and dulcimer. In reality it was a mere sounding box, and the cord was a steel rod that conveyed the vibrations of the music from the several instruments which were played out of sight and ear-shot. At this period Wheatstone made numerous experiments on sound and ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... said I. "I only remember you presenting me with that hideous thing hanging in my passage, which you called a dulcimer." ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... day, i.e., a small hollow chest, with the strings stretched across it. An instrument of this kind could be played with the fingers, like a harp, or with a plectrum, like a zither, or with two little knob-sticks, like the dulcimer. Mersennus (b. 1588) also identifies the Psaltery with ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... comely and merry, sit behind musical instruments, of so great variety as to recall the "cornet, flute, sackbut, harp, psaltery, and dulcimer" of Scripture. The "head wife" of the premier, earnestly engaged in creaming her lips, reclines apart on a dais, attended ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... reproduce in full. It lends itself better to dignified and adequate reproduction than do his lyrics, because it is not rhymed.[14] After a brief preface, the poet says: "We have composed a ballad in the ancient style, and have sung it to the sound of the dulcimer." ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... he had taken to pieces and put together again, strengthened, soldered, mended, and braced, every accordion, guitar, melodeon, dulcimer, and fiddle in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the neighbouring villages. There was a little money to be earned in this way, but very little, as people in general regarded this "tinkering" as a pleasing diversion in which they could indulge him without danger. As an example ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and among the subjects of his experiments were three young cats. Wilson, in his "Eccentric Mirror,"[126] has recorded that "he taught these domestic tigers to strike their paws in such directions on the dulcimer, as to produce several tunes, having music-books before them, and squalling at the same time in different keys or tones, first, second, and third, by way of concert. In such a city as London these feats could not fail of making some noise. His house was every day crowded, and great interruption ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... these musicians intended to garner at the propylaea the first fruits of the liberality which had here not yet spent itself. There were a girl harpist with repulsive, staring eyes; an old invalid with a wooden leg, who, on a dreadful, evidently home-made instrument, half dulcimer, half barrel-organ, was endeavoring by means of analogy to arouse the pity of the public for his painful injury; a lame, deformed boy, forming with his violin one single, indistinguishable mass, was playing endless ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of Light" fully indorsed this Allen boy, and gave lengthy accounts of his manifestations. The arrangements for his exhibition were very simple. A dulcimer, guitar, bell, and small drum being placed on a sofa or several chairs set against the wall, a clothes-horse was set in front of them and covered with a blanket, which came to the floor. To obtain "manifestations," a person was required to take off his coat and sit with his back to the clothes-horse. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... were dazzled by the flash of armor, the splendor of golden caparisons, the gorgeous display of silks, brocades, and velvets, of tossing plumes and fluttering banners. There was at the same time a triumphant sound of drums and trumpets, clarions and sackbuts, mingled with the sweet melody of the dulcimer, which came swelling in bursts of harmony that seemed to rise up to ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... [The dulcimer (or psaltery) consisted of a flat box, acting as a resonating chamber, over which strings of wire were stretched: These were struck ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... all would have the same advantageous effect, proclaiming and notifying the character, without putting the fair supporter to any disagreeable expense of Hebrew or Chaldee. The silver bells alone would 'bear the bell' from every competitor in the room; and she might besides carry a cymbal—a dulcimer—or a ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... south side: (1) Angels with pipe and tambourine. (2) Angels with cymbals and bagpipes. (3) Angels with hurdy-gurdy and harp. (4) Angels with dulcimer and organ. (5 and 6) Angels censing. (7) St. Matthew and St. John with their emblems, a scroll and an eagle. (8) Angel with a violin; others with emblems of the Passion, i.e., posts, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... paying a visit to some fair damsel of the town, Sir Henry, with his dulcimer," suggested the dame. "I saw him with the music some while before the gates ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... an introduction typifying the opening of the temple gates (a gong giving the music further locale), the first theme is announced by harp and mandolin. It is an ancient Chinese air for the yong-kim (a dulcimer-like instrument). The second subject is adapted from the serenade theme. With these two smuggled themes everything contrapuntal (a fugue included) and instrumental is done that technical bravado could suggest or true art license. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... upon us, I penetrated for the first time to the inner meaning of the chapter in his Venetian Life that Howells labels Comincia far Caldo, the season when repose takes you to her inner heart and you learn her secrets, when at last you know why it was an Abyssinian maid who played upon her dulcimer, at last you recognize in Xanadu the land where you ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... there have been arrangements for a procession, which could not be got up; for a speech which nobody would undertake to pronounce; and, lastly, for a dinner, about which last there was no hanging back. Yea, also, they have hired from Carcarrow Church-town, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music; for Frank has put down the old choir band at Aberalva,—another of his mistakes,—and there is but one fiddle and a clarionet now left in all the town. So the said town waits all the day on tiptoe, ready to worship, till out of the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... dominoes, at which, thanks to May Lee, he was an expert; fortunately he came off conqueror, and thus restored to some extent the credit of the party. These games were played by torchlight, the local band—harp, dulcimer, two drums and clappers—discoursed at intervals; here the inhabitants, unlike those of Rangoon, were early birds. By ten o'clock lights were extinguished, the crowd had dispersed, and a serene silence fell on the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... as red as her mother's, though the old Countess paints hers every day. Her foot is as light as a sparrow's, and her voice as sweet as a minstrel's dulcimer; but give me nathless the Lady Anne," cried Philibert; "give me the peerless Lady Anne! As soon as ever I have won spurs, I will ride all Christendom through, and proclaim her the Queen of Beauty. Ho, Lady Anne! Lady Anne!" ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray |
